Go Out Fighting
by chezchuckles
Summary: SPOILERS for Knockout. Post-episode series. What happens after Beckett gets shot? COMPLETE at chapter 9.
1. Chapter 1

"Sometimes in the morning

I am petrified and can't move

Awake but cannot open my eyes.

And the weight

is crushing down on my lungs;

I know I can't breathe

And hope someone

will save me this time."

-Rilo Kiley

* * *

><p>Not a head shot. <em>Not a head shot<em>.

Please, God, don't let it be a head shot.

She has the vest on; it's hot. Sweat is rolling down the back of her skull under her hat, slick at the nape of her neck. She opens her mouth, catches Castle's eye, gets that jolt of awareness and certainty just from the intensity of his gaze, and can keep going, keep it up, don't stop.

_Don't let it be a head shot_.

A puff of air that doesn't release, the sucker punch to her gut, oh God I'm shot and then full body tackle by Castle, to the soft green grass, the soft of her insides ripping, the Kevlar vest pressing all breath out of her.

Castle looks afraid. Castle's anguish pours out of him like blood. All over her, poured all over her.

She tries to bring her hand up, tries to see it, the blood, but Castle bats her hands away; she has no control over herself anymore, her eyes are heavy, too much sunlight, too much bright green grass, bright eyes, Castle-

_It hurts_. Her body-

The Kevlar did her no good. No good against armor-piercing rounds. She was afraid of the head shot; she should've thought of this, she should've thought of this-

Her stomach, chest; it burns. It's hot, her vest crushes, the taste of bullets on her tongue, no, please Castle-

"Kate, stay with me. Don't leave me."

She should've thought of this. She can't breathe. She can't-

"I love you. I love you, Kate."

_Oh God, please._

* * *

><p>She should've thought of this.<p>

Damn it. Damn it. She should've warned him that this could happen.

Her cap, on the ground; he needs to get that; she'll want it; she'll need that when-

when-

Rick's fingers fumble against the grass, crush her dress uniform's hat in his fist, reaches back for Kate, for a touch, for something of her. The paramedics, Lanie, her father all crouched in the grass beside the grave, flowers crushed and scattered. He's crying. He's crying; her hat is crushed. He eases his hand, smooths it, a smear of blood across the brim and he catches himself on his knees, hunched over, sucking in breaths that won't come.

"Castle!"

Ryan. Lifts him up. "In the bus, get in the bus; call us when-"

"When, when," he agrees. Not if. Not if. When.

A shove from behind which gets him started, tumbling towards the stretcher, the paramedics quick-moving across the grass. The bus has pulled up the lane, past the gates; Lanie, her dress ruined with grass and blood, running after them, yelling things. Should he be listening? Are these instructions for him, or the paramedics, or Esposito-?

Esposito isn't here. Ryan has run back to-

to wherever the scope flashed.

Castle reaches forward to touch her hair, the tangled mess that his fingers have already caused, needs that connection. The paramedics hoist her into the back, the bus is running, Lanie is crawling in, turning around to tug Castle up; four of them squeezed into the back of the ambulance; the doors slam and he tries to keep out of their way, tries to not be a stumbling block, but he has to-

he has to-

has to touch something of her. Has to have that. His fingers tangled in her hair, his palm cupped over her ear, thumb just at her cheekbone. He leans forward, presses his mouth to her ear so she can hear him, somewhere, he believes it, knows it, somewhere she can hear him:

"Fight, Kate. Keep fighting; stay with me."


	2. Chapter 2

Crawl back into bed

to dream of a time

When your heart was open wide

and you loved things, just because.

-Rilo Kiley

* * *

><p>She wouldn't listen to him. He wanted to say, "But this is insane. He died to save you, Kate. He died to keep you safe. This isn't right." But he didn't. He didn't do that. He should have.<p>

He's sitting. Down. ICU waiting room and his jacket is on the floor, blood-crusted; his ankle is swollen. Ryan's Jenny sitting too close beside him. Too kind. She walks him through paperwork; he and Jim Beckett do it together, some. There are loops. Hoops to jump through. Not loops. No, wait, loopholes. There are loopholes.

_Pay attention, Castle. You need to know this._

Jenny tells him that he can't legally be given details of Kate's condition or care unless she signs a waiver. But Jim is her de facto guardian while Kate is under anesthetic, her next-of-kin, and Jim takes one look at him and signs the waiver. Next of kin. It should be him. She should have warned him. She should have known this might happen, the vest was nothing, the vest was tissue paper-

He can't concentrate. Now he's filling out the other stuff, transferring funds from what he secretly calls his Nikki Heat account, into her savings account, some into Jim's just in case her father can't get to Kate's, some. . .where?

He's losing track again. His hand pauses on the page, the pen still. Jenny touches his hand, gently, as if afraid to spook him. His brain clears; her blue eyes are sincere.

"Rick, how about this part?" She presses her finger into the application form; he puts his mind to it. Force of will. Read the question.

Account routing number.

He fills it out; Alexis comes in with Ashley, who drove. _Go to Princeton_. _Fine, please, let me just have Kate._

"Rick," a patient voice. He glances down. Not Princeton, not a college application.

"What am I-?" He tilts his head but everything blurs. "Oh. Money. The money."

Out of the fund he set up for Kate. For when, maybe someday, he might convince her that half of his profits truly is the only fair solution to poaching just about every word out of her mouth, mining her for back story. Leeching Kate Beckett for the blood and bones of Nikki Heat. Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.

_For God's own sake, for the sake of all things holy and good and right in this world, let me have Kate. Let me just have Kate._

The ICU floor nurse comes back out; Rick stiffens. Jim, across the room, drops his pen. What is her name? Rick used to be good with names.

"Okay guys, I can tell you that she's still in surgery, but that things look so much better. Her breastbone," the nurse gestures to her own chest "was nicked as the bullet came in, shattered into a lot of sharp fragments."

Shrapnel, he thinks. Her own bones like shrapnel. Like a bomb.

"So the surgeons are still removing bone fragments. They stopped the major bleeders, and they're concentrating on repairing the damage to the heart muscle."

Her heart is broken? But he can fix that.

He stands up. He's volunteering.

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Castle. You're finished with all that?" She takes the clipboard, pen, dangerous objects away from him. "I'll get all the paperwork complete, then I'll call down to the surgery suite and get you another update."

And like that, all the air in the room walks out with her.

_You take too much. You take, you take, don't take her. You can't have her. Not her. Not Kate._

* * *

><p>Three men in a row. Boys, really, two of them. Only one has experienced anything like this before. Castle's got Ashley on his left, the boy hunched over with his elbows on his knees, and Jim Beckett on his right, the man leaned back in his chair with his head tilted up to the ceiling and his eyes closed, but not asleep. Not asleep.<p>

Castle sits slouched, while occasional spasms of gut-twisting knot his insides. Like just now. Wrenching him. He draws in his arms, cold and hot at the same time, finds the pain has a peculiar flavor, like mint. Like brushing your teeth hard enough to make your gums bleed. He runs his tongue over his teeth, just to check.

Jim leans forward, pats Castle on the knee as if to say _You tried_, and stands up to make a coffee run or bathroom break. To do something different.

Ashley looks up, watches the man leave, then turns back to his girlfriend's father. "Alexis says she's packing you a bag." Ash has his cell phone in hand and Castle realizes he's been texting Alexis back and forth this whole time. "Do you want anything specific?"

He shakes his head, then reconsiders. "My laptop." He's glad Ashley has asked this question outside of Jim's hearing. He's ashamed that he needs it, but he does. Curse of the writer. He reverts to being the observer. He's got details he needs to get down, things like the color of her blood, the thickness of the grass as he bent over her, the feel of her cap in his hand as he accidentally crushed it. He needs those things out of him. The lack of understanding in her eyes, the look of terrible peace on her face the second before her eyes closed. He needs those things out of him. He needs them on the page, exorcised, good riddance.

He doesn't want to close his eyes and see her staring back at him, bewildered by pain. He doesn't want it.

"I got it," Ashley says.

"Thank you."

He closes his eyes again, has to open them to get that image out of his head. Her cap is on his left knee. Perched there. Waiting. He can't figure out what to do with it. Lanie was in here an hour ago, calls to check up on him, on Kate; she says she's coming back in another couple hours. There's funeral stuff to attend to, which is-

He shakes his head. He's relieved that Lanie and the boys have to deal with that; paying honor to the Captain while Kate's in trouble. Ryan left Jenny with him in the waiting room; she's sweet. She's careful not to talk too much. Vaguely, Castle remembers that her father died of cancer five years back, wonders if an experience like that gives you the ability to be so sweet, to understand how little people want to talk.

Jim comes back without coffee. Rick still thinks that was a coffee break.

"I've got to. . .to call someone about my dogs," Jim says, inanely. He shakes his head. "I need to find a hotel room. Something, some place. I. . .You'll be here, right, Rick?"

"I won't leave her."

"I might call, after this, or at a break. . .do they break in surgery?"

"I don't know."

"I might go see about a place."

A place. Something clicks in his brain for once. "No. Stay at my loft. You know where it is. I'll give you a key."

Jim looks surprised. "Oh. Yes."

He doesn't say thank you, and Rick doesn't expect him to. "I'll be here mostly. As much as they let me."

"They'll kick you out," Jim says sadly.

"Not me."

He can hear it, and he knows it sounds arrogant. It's not though. It's just how things are. How they will be. He won't be leaving.

"Sometimes I used to wonder." Jim starts, stops, clears his throat. "Sometimes I used to wonder what Katie would've been like if she'd had her mom still. Or if it was just cancer. Would she be like this?"

"Like what."

"Stupid," he whispers. "So stupid about her life. Picking the wrong guys, closed up, closed off, not talking to me, to anyone. She used to be so. . .so carefree. She loved things. Everything. She loved people, loved summer, loved winter, loved books, loved sports. There wasn't anything she didn't love. And now. Now nothing. Now it's like prying her open to get at anything."

Castle just wants her to love one thing. Just one. He won't ask for anything else. "I don't think I'd recognize a Kate like that."

Jim nods slowly, his head back and forth, almost rocking. "I've tried, so many times, to tell her. . .but after my drinking-" Jim lifts his eyes to see if Rick knows this, nods agains when Rick shows no surprise. "-after my drinking, she stopped listening to me about this kind of thing. The respect is gone. Oh, I know she respects me as her father, she does, she tells herself she does. But. . ."

"But."

"It's still there. At the back. _Who do you think you are to tell me what to do?_ And I see that. I do. I get it."

"But."

Jim huffs. "But that's the reason I came to you, son. Because she won't listen to me anymore. Not after the drinking. So I guess I'm asking you. . .I'm asking you to be the one. I already did, didn't I? I've passed her along to you."

_But I'm not-_

Oh. "Yes, sir," Castle whispers. Yes sir. Still. If he can get her to love just one thing again, just, selfishly, himself. _Just love me, Kate._

Jim answers for him. "It'd be good to have that Katie back again. The one who loves. I'd like to see her again."


	3. Chapter 3

But the lows are so extreme

That the good seems cheap,

And it teases you for weeks in its absence.

-Rilo Kiley

* * *

><p>The surgery is nine hours; he is awake for eight of them. The other hour is sprinkled in handfuls of minutes in which his body rebels and shuts down on him, so that he comes to in the too bright waiting room, his neck in a spasm or his back protesting, cramped in a plastic chair. He is appalled that his body can quit on him, that he can sleep at all, when he should be watching and waiting, alert for any sign. Jim Beckett leaves with Alexis and Ashley to get the extra key to the loft, to settle in what he can, and then returns sometime into hour three.<p>

At half past hour four, Jim gets up and talks to the night nurse at the ICU intake desk. She seems pleasant, quite calm, and finally manages to usher Jim back to the waiting room, closing the door behind her like she is locking in the prisoners. The windows have wire mesh embedded in the glass, there are locked doors that no amount of charm can get Rick Castle past. Jim has had no more luck either.

It is just waiting.

At hour five, Alexis comes back with his bag and laptop; he cradles the machine against his chest and rests his chin on the edge, soothed just by its still-warm presence. He feels that if he can write it out, get it down, it will be better. It will help. Not only him, but somehow her as well.

Hour six he spends wishing, craving, the keys under his fingers so badly that his hands shake. He will not do that now, not while Kate is still in surgery. He is aware that the force of his concentration and his will does *not* in fact keep her alive. But it feels like it does. It feels like if he lets himself get distracted now, then he has abandoned her to the dark. He must keep watch.

She is his responsibility; she is his to carry out of the darkness, even if it's against her will, over his shoulder, pleading all the way. He won't drop her now, not even to let his mind untangle on the page, not even to sleep; it will have to come and wrestle him down.

Hour seven: exhaustion and anxiety tag team him. He finds himself drifting from black to harsh fluorescent and back again, in and out like a bad trip. Rick jerks awake for the third, seventh? time and rubs a hand harshly down his face, feeling stubble and sweat and the slack skin of constant worry. He stands up, places his laptop in the chair, and stalks to the door, then through it, officially noting the time as hour eight.

Eight hours of surgery. The shrapnel of her ribs and breastbone; the damage done to her heart.

He doesn't go to the nurses' station. He will not ask again. He knows that the nurses are doing their jobs, knows they will come let him know the instant anything changes. He trusts that. He walks the opposite direction to keep himself from stopping at the desk to ask despite all the things he knows, in his head, but which he doesn't seem to get in his heart. He needs to keep on their good side, so he walks towards the stairwell.

Once inside, on the landing of the seventh floor, he sits on the top step and puts his head in his hands. With Alexis in there, with Jim, with even Ashley and Jenny as witnesses, he can't give in to the helplessness. But here, alone in the stairwell of the hospital, he can let grief have its ugly way with him.

He doesn't want her to die. He can't. . .can't function if she dies. She won't die. He refuses it. He rejects it. He will fight everything, anything; he will not let her die.

But Kate isn't his; he has no special claim on her. It's not for him, not because he loves her, but because she's Kate. She's Kate, and he doesn't think the world can bear to lose her. Because her father has suffered too much already, because her mother was taken from her, because the mentors in her life have been playing games behind her back, have been taking on the responsibility and trust and adoration of a young woman who needs guidance in this world, and instead of leading her, they have run her around in circles. Her father and his drinking, her training partner and his greed, her Captain and his betrayal.

He wants her to live in spite of these things, wants her to live because of them. Wants her to live because he wants to be the one man who doesn't lead her astray. And if she won't have him, he can live with that. So long as she lives as well.

He presses his forehead to his knees, has to stand up before it drowns him. Restless, walking in circles, his eyes sweeping the window set into the seventh floor landing, looking for signs and portents, or at least a rainstorm, to signify what it all means. Surely there is more to this life than random tragedy. Surely this isn't how it ends for Kate Beckett. Not in the freezer, not by the dirty bomb, not by countless others who have aimed for her and been intercepted. If he were writing this scene, she would d-

His heart flips; he has to clutch the edge of the window to stay on his feet. No. This is not a book; this is not a scene where the author is trying to make a point; this is not an episode which will later build his character. If this is God's idea of a novel, it's a shitty one, with no meaning and few themes, other than betrayal and the arc of her mother's death, shadowing over her.

Castle grinds the heels of his hands into his eye sockets, crushing it out. _Give me more than this. Give me something to hold on to, some hope for life._

Suddenly, inexplicably, in the dark of his closed eyes he remembers the soft feel of her hair under his fingers, sliding, and the warm press of her mouth, the heat of her bottom lip as he 'faked' a kiss with her in the streetlight. He remembers watching her face as she confesses that Josh isn't cutting it, that she wants to find someone to dive right into it with, the look of young, beautiful hope naked in her eyes, a little shy, a little fervent. He remembers standing in the precinct and her offhand avowal to break him out of prison if he needs it. He remembers grabbing a beer with her at his bar, the way she twirled the neck of the beer bottle with two fingers, round and round the wood.

He sees the way her front canine teeth make her lips curl funny when she's surprised. He sees the pale jut of her cheekbones under her skin. He sees the angle of her hipbones this summer when he got back, like she didn't eaten dinner for months. He sees the roll of her eyes, the raised eyebrow, the smirk of her teasing mouth, the flicker of amusement she ruthlessly suppresses.

He girds himself with these moments, these washes of color, wraps himself in these as if he can clothe himself in Kate Beckett and perhaps attain salvation. He can breathe again, and he comes out of the stairwell and back down the hall.

It is the beginning of the ninth hour.

_Fine. Into your hands, you ruthless God. But send her back into mine._


	4. Chapter 4

But you'll fight and you'll make it through  
>You'll fake it if you have to. . .<p>

You'll be positive though it hurts.

-Rilo Kiley

* * *

><p>He half-listens to the two surgeons who have brought them to this family conference room, a chamber of bereavement and final prognoses. He hears: <em>She's come through the surgery; she's stable for now<em>. He stops hearing anything after that. He is cascading relief, awash in trembling, hysterical relief. It leaks out onto his face; he has to keep swiping at his cheeks because Alexis is looking at him horrified, thunderstruck, and he knows he needs to man up, get it under control for her, but God, he's just so relieved, so overwhelmingly relieved.

It's just him, Alexis, and Jim in the room with the two surgeons. Jim is making notes; Rick has a bewildered instant of wondering if there is information he's missing, but it gets washed away by the waves of gratitude that roll through him.

At a lull, he asks, "When can we see her?"

They hedge. They hesitate. His relief stutters, but they are just trying to caution him about her condition, her frailty, that she may look nothing like what he expects, she may look quite bad. Kate's been placed on a ventilator to keep her breathing while her body recovers from surgery. The tube down her throat may look unnatural, but she needs it. She may wake here and there, but she won't be truly conscious. He can talk to her, he *should* talk to her, they encourage it, but don't expect her to follow or remember a conversation.

Visitors are limited to 15 minutes at a time at the top of the hour. One at a time. Time your visits carefully because the floor nurse will not allow you more time. When she's more stable, then your time may increase. No way of knowing right now. Go home, get some rest, come back in the morning.

"No."

The two surgeons leave; they don't even bother to address Castle's denial. They have seen this; they doubt him. Well, too bad, because he's not leaving. He's not leaving her here alone.

"Alexis, take Kate's dad home, will you?"

Jim is dead on his feet, has been for the last couple hours (they all have), and he puts up a struggle, but it's weak and half-hearted. "Rick, you should get some sleep too. She'll need you-"

"I'll sleep here, Jim. I'll be fine."

Alexis throws him a look of her own, mixed with something he doesn't recognize, but takes Jim by the arm, guiding him out. He thinks maybe that look was surprise.

Castle rubs a hand down his face and plans his attack.

* * *

><p>He's got a cot and a nice spot right beside her bed; he's breaking all the rules, but the nurses have signed copies and at least thirty minutes of straight-out, no-holds-barred flirting from him. The cot is too low, keeps him from seeing her, so he sits on it and leans against the bedrail, his chin on the crook of his arm, one arm through the railing up to his forearm (as far as he can push it through) holding her hand.<p>

She's cold. He's not allowed to add blankets; he's not allowed to touch the tube or the tape even though it's chafing the delicate skin around her mouth. He's not allowed to disturb the nurses when they are on rounds; he can't go roaming the halls for the doctor. He can press the call button for the nurse if Kate looks like she's in distress, but they warn him: they can always tell when a patient is in distress. In other words, it is highly unlikely he will ever be calling them.

This is fine with him. He is allowed his laptop so long as he disables the wireless network feature; his cell phone is completely turned off. This is fine; he uses the document program anyway, no need for internet right now.

He strokes the top of her hand with two fingers, coasts along the highways of her veins. Her left hand has an IV attached; it's strapped to a foam board with clear surgical tape to keep the lines clear. The rhythmic breathing machine sounds like something out of Alien or a B-grade science fiction movie. Loud, clunky, like it's a car from the late 80's and needs replacement parts badly. It pushes air into her lungs and her chest puffs strangely, an awkward rise, and then a slow collapse back down. But she's breathing.

She's breathing.

He takes a breath as well, as if in sympathy, and discovers that it's nearly impossible to not breathe with the motion of the machine; it's hypnotic and he's had a hell of a long day. He can barely keep his head upright perched on the railing at her side; he lets his cheek come into contact with the cold plastic rail, watches his fingers skimming her hand.

A map of skin under his fingertips. The ocean of open pores, the island of a freckle, the ridged land mass of a knuckle. He's never seen anyone so colorless. Even the dead bodies he's seen, they've got splashes or purple or black, garish red, fading pink, that particular shade of deadly green. She's alive, she breathes, but it's like she's withdrawn to protect her vulnerable insides, pulled all the blood out of her extremities, retreated.

The gown is loose over her collarbones, dotted with some faded yellow pattern. The starched sheets are the same white as the gown, the same slack white as her skin, tinged by a strange yellow. Bruises of blood pool under her skin, the fingerprints of trauma. Her eyes flicker every so often, but she doesn't wake, is not even close to consciousness; it is just the random firing of her doped brain. The tube keeps her mouth open, her lips tight across her teeth, and he doesn't like to see it.

His fingers get caught on a knuckle; he rubs the strange flake of skin there, like a leftover scab, the last healing of a papercut. Where it should be that healthy, new pink, it's tinged a blue-brown. He can't get over the stranger in this hospital bed, the way her body moves without her, the way this unfamiliar skin has draped over the frame of the old Kate Beckett. Those are her bones, but this is not her body. It is graceless and unnatural.

But she lives.

He spreads his hand over hers, engulfing the strange little thing, hiding it, and closes his eyes. The cold of her skin, at first, leaches into his. And then his own blood asserts itself, rushes to all those contact points of skin on skin, begins flooding her hand with warmth. This makes him feel a little better, the idea that in some way, he can take care of her.

For now anyway.


	5. Chapter 5

You'll be better,  
>And You'll be smarter,<br>And more grown up, and a better daughter. . .

-Rilo Kiley

* * *

><p>When he wakes up, Jim is in a chair on the other side of the bed. Sitting low to the ground on the cot, Castle feels at a distinct and purposeful disadvantage.<p>

Without preamble, Jim starts. "She loves your books, you know."

"I'd heard she was a fan," Castle replies carefully. At one time, he might have gushed over this kind of intimate detail into Kate Beckett's life. Now it just feels. . .sad. Like talking about someone who won't come back. Remembering. He clears his throat and rubs at his eyes, looks over at Kate. The machine still breathes for her, up and down, her bruises are more livid and ugly. The collar of her hospital gown has twisted enough so that he can see one edge of the dressing covering her surgical incision.

"She's a reader, Katie is. Even as a kid, read all the time. Madeleine L'Engle, Byars, Beverly Cleary, Judy Blume, Nancy Drew. All those good, strong, girl books. I'd read them to her at bedtime when she was very little, but then she got impatient and started reading them on her own, sneaking them at night in her closet with a flashlight. My favorite memory of Katie, coming in to her room to tuck her in one night when I was late home, and finding she'd fallen asleep in the closet over a book."

Castle awkwardly leans forward on the cot, looking at Jim through the railing. He can picture a thin little girl, her dark hair in her eyes, slumped over a book, the flashlight at a crazy angle. It makes his chest ache. He thinks about Alexis, how he'd found her one morning asleep under her bed with all of her stuffed animals, because she'd had a nightmare and didn't want to come get him. He was with Gina then, before they were married, but Gina had been there.

"She read all the time. In the bathroom, at the dinner table, in school, riding her bike once! We'd be walking to the grocery store, all three of us, and Katie would be five steps behind, reading a book as she walked. Got so bad, I'd have to steer her, put her between me and Johanna as we walked."

Castle waits, but there's none of that anguish in Jim's voice when he talks about his wife, not like there still is in Kate's voice when she does the same. He wonders why Kate chose police work while Jim chose alcohol, wonders if maybe Jim, after all, made a better decision for his life in the end: to just let it go, to make what peace he could and move on.

"When her mother died, Katie just. . .shut down. Nothing came out, nothing went in. I couldn't get her to speak a word to me, to anyone else for a week, and then when she did open her mouth, she was so angry. All the time. So angry."

"I can't imagine," Rick says, but actually, he can imagine it. It's kind of his job to imagine it, but the words are a placeholder for Jim's story, a way to pause and let the man collect the threads of his thoughts.

"When she started going through mystery novels, just inhaling them, I thought it was strange. Still, I was glad to see her distracted. Escapism. She needed some kind of justice, I knew that, and she found it in those books. Yours she loved the best. I think she started out on them because they were a little bit goofy. . ." Jim trails off, lifts his eyes to look at Rick with something like a flush on his cheeks. "That maybe doesn't sound so great."

Rick gives him a tired smile. "I honestly have no idea right now. You could tell me I'm a terrible writer, only fit for eleven year old Bieber-fangirls to read, and I'd probably agree with you."

Jim nodded. "I mean that your novels didn't always dwell on the terrible aspects of death and murder. I read them sometime later, of course, not back then. But I saw what she saw in them. A way to get out of her head. A place to live in for awhile that was clever and engaging, where the good guys had grit and the bad guys got what was coming to them, often in some amusing or satisfying way."

"Well. . .thanks?" Castle stands up to stretch the kinks out of his back, wonders if Alexis is here too or if she went to school, wonders if he should leave the man here with Kate, let him have some privacy.

And then Jim says softly, "She took off work one afternoon to stand in line and get one of your books signed."

Castle's mouth drops open, his arms fall to his sides. "She did what?"

"Went to a book signing, here in New York. Maybe five years ago, six years ago. She not tell you that?"

"Are you kidding me?" He can't get over the idea that he met Kate Beckett six years ago and wasn't instantly enamored. . .oh. Six years ago. "Ah, well, I was newly divorced then."

Jim looks up at that. "Really."

Castle realizes that he's shown his hand, but he stays standing, waits for the payoff or the judgment.

Jim rubs a hand on top of his thigh, as if it's numb. "Even though. . .she might not be able to say that she needs you-"

"You don't have to say it," Castle says, crossing his arms over his chest. Is it wrong that he wants to hear it from Kate first?

Jim nods once, short, and his eyes are wet again. "She does really love your work. Bought every book." The older man clears his throat and gives Castle a watery smile. "Well, you probably figured that out."

"I heard that, once. But it's good to hear confirmation; she'd never tell me." Jim gives him a better smile, and Castle takes that as his cue. "Since you're here, I'll just. . .just get cleaned up."

But he can't just leave, can't just walk out of the room like there's just the two of them, stuck in an uncomfortable conversation. He leans down over the bed and preses a kiss to Kate's cheek, even though he knows, he *knows* she would never let him get that close if she were awake. He'll take what he can get. Even with Jim in the room, he can't help himself. He's already tipped his hand, hasn't he? Might as well go all the way.

"Hear that, Kate? You need to wake up soon. Before I learn all your secrets."

As he leaves, he hears Jim chuckling, and he thinks: at least, there's that.

* * *

><p>Alexis waits for her father in the hallway; she's wearing jeans and a fitted tshirt, not her school uniform, her hair pulled back into a ponytail. She's miserable.<p>

"Hey, pumpkin. You look like you haven't slept."

Because he looks like he needs it, and because she definitely does, Alexis wraps her arms around his waist and buries her face in his shirt, smelling him, eyes closed, trying to recapture something she's not even sure of, and doesn't know how she lost. All she knows is that Ashley can't do it for her, or her grandmother, only her father, whose arms wrap around her shoulders and squeeze, his chin coming to rest on her head.

"I haven't," she admits, mumbling into his chest. He smells like laundry, and skin, and stale deodorant, and below that, blood. She knows the smell of blood now only because of yesterday, blood poured out in copious amounts, blood drenching the grass, Kate's uniform, her father's jacket where the hem dragged in it-

"Sweetheart," he sighs, kissing the top of her head. "Why didn't you go home and sleep?"

She pulls back only enough to see his face. "I did go home. With Mr. Beckett. He slept in the guest room upstairs and when he got up, we came back here."

"No school," he notes.

"Dad, please don't make me go to school. I can't possibly concentrate. I've got an AP test today; I'm going to reschedule it."

He looks shocked, and she supposes that's because she's *never* rescheduled a test if she can help it, because this is her AP Chem test, and he knows how much she's studied for it, but she will absolutely fail it if she has to take it today. Who can think about chemistry equations when Kate was shot yesterday?

"All right. I'm not really. . .in a position right now to enforce school attendance, I guess."

She leans up to kiss his cheek. "Thanks Dad."

"But sleep. You need to sleep. Why didn't you sleep?"

"I tried. I kept having bad dreams." She lays her cheek against his shirt, closing her eyes. It feels safe again.

"Oh, Alexis," he sighs, and she hears the disappointment in his voice.

"I'm sorry."

"Not your fault you can't sleep. I never wanted. . .never meant for this to affect you."

"It's not like it's *your* fault either, Dad." She snuggles tighter against him, curling her arms up. With her eyes closed, she can ignore the sounds of the hospital, the smell of vaseline and disinfectant, the sight of a long row of windows with deathly ill patients behind them. "Can I. . .Can I see her?"

"I don't think that's such a good idea, Alexis."

"Please?"

"Sweetheart, I don't think she'd want you to see her like this. It's not. . .it's not pretty. I don't think she'd want *me* to see her like this."

"Please, Dad. I need to. . .I want to see her for myself. I don't care how bad she is now; I just don't want this image in my head anymore."

"I'm sorry," he says again, squeezing her. "You dreamed about it?"

"I heard you shout," she says quietly, keeping her eyes closed, hanging on to the drape of his protection. "I heard you yell her name, but I was watching Kate. I was watching her the whole time, while she was talking, and her face. . .I saw it. The moment it hit her. The bullet."

"Oh, God, Alexis."

"I saw her face. She just looked. . .stunned, like it couldn't be happening. And then pain, I could see that it hurt and she was surprised it hurt, and then you had her. Everyone was ducking, because we'd heard the shot. It sounded funny. It sounded like someone had a super-powered dart gun, like it was a puff of air or a car backfiring."

"A silencer, Esposito said."

"It doesn't really silence it, does it?"

"No. In Europe, they call it a suppressor."

She strokes her thumbs over his biceps, looking at the jagged edge of her nail. "I saw you with her; I was stupid, I guess. I got up when Lanie pushed Javier off of her and ran over, and I just. . .followed her. Grams caught my ankle, but I couldn't stop. I had to see. I had to know."

"That was dangerous, Alexis."

"I wasn't thinking about it. I just. . .you were both behind the coffin, behind the podium, and people were screaming and I needed to know you were okay-"

"It wasn't me," he says softly.

"I didn't know that for sure. It was so fast. I think Lanie crawled over there and I was crouching behind her, and that's when she pushed up next to you and I saw Mr. Beckett and his face-and oh, God, Dad, Kate was looking at you and then her eyes rolled back, and I could see the blood, her blood all over, and I could smell it-"

She takes a shuddering breath in, choking on a sob, trying to keep from adding more misery to her father's shoulders, but unable to stop. He's her father, her daddy; he's always made things okay but she knows he can't make this one okay. And she knows it will kill him; it will unmake him if Kate dies-

"Is she going to die?"

"No." He says, squeezes her too hard as if by reflex, lets her go to rub his palms up and down her back. "No. Don't say it; don't even think it."

"Because I really like her. I really like what she does for you, Dad. I know it's not really my business, and it's your life, but I hate Gina, and I hate the stupid girls you always used to hook up with before Kate, and I know you're not really with Kate, really, but you *are* with her, and she makes things interesting and challenging for you, I can see that, I know she does, you even write better when you write about her, and I don't want her to die-"

She bites off her words to swallow back a fresh wave of tears, realizes that she's been practically wailing, but the tears just pour down her cheeks, a river, unstoppable.

Her dad hugs her tight. "She's not. She's staying right here with me, with us."

"Please let me see her." She squeezes her eyes shut and sucks in another breath, trying to gain control of herself. If she's weepy and miserable-looking, her father will never let her in. "Please, Dad. For just a minute."

Her father brushes his hand across her cheek, wipes her tears off on his pants leg, hugs her a little tighter. She waits for him to say something, anything, but he's very silent, very still.

"I need to see her, Dad. I want to. . .I want to help somehow."

He sighs. "Okay, Alexis. You can go in when Jim takes a break."

"Thank you, Daddy. Thank you."

She can't explain why it's so important, but she just needs. . .needs it. Needs to tell Kate some things even if Kate won't ever remember. Even if Kate doesn't-

He's right. She shouldn't think like that.


	6. Chapter 6

And sometimes when you're on  
>You're really on.<br>And your friends they sing along,  
>And they love you.<p>

-Rilo Kiley

* * *

><p>When Castle gets back, a black-and-white sits at the curb of the hospital's main entrance; a plainclothesman is outside the waiting room on the ICU floor, and two uniforms are posted outside Kate's door.<p>

His stomach flips. This is serious; this is someone after Kate who wants her dead, and incapacitated might not be good enough.

Alexis is in the waiting room, looking nervous, and Rick hands his id to the cop, waits while the man writes down his name and the time. He takes his license back, slides it into his wallet, and is allowed inside. He sits next to his daughter, puts an arm around her shoulders. "When did they get here?"

"About five minutes after you left."

"Have you gotten to see Kate yet?"

"Not yet. Her dad's still in there."

"What's that you've got?" he says, nudging her knee with his own.

She holds up the book, rubs a hand over the cover. "Wuthering Heights. She told me once it was one of her favorite classics. And it's mine too. She gave me this copy for Christmas. Since I'm not sure I can talk the whole time, the nurse told me I could read her a book."

"That's a sweet thought, Alexis."

At that moment, Jim Beckett walks through the door, slumps into a seat across from them. He rubs a hand down his face. Castle leans forward, waiting for his moment. But Alexis stands up, the book against her chest, and walks over to Jim. She sits down beside him, patting his shoulder.

"Mr. Beckett, if you don't mind, I'd really like to spend some time with Kate. However much time. . .I just. . ."

Castle is seriously impressed with her courage. And he's glaring at Jim to pay attention, staring the man down from across the room. _Answer her. Answer my daughter._

Jim gives Alexis a fractured smile, takes a moment to pat Alexis's knee like a grandfather (there's an idea that Castle finds both disturbing and oddly inspiring), and nods. "Of course. As much as you like. If your father is. . ." He trails off, looking towards Rick, and Castle nods his permission.

Alexis beams and stands up with a flourish. "I'll go now then. Thank you."

She hurries out with her book, slowing down only when she goes by the cop at the door, walking at a more moderate pace.

Rick relaxes slightly and sighs. "Thanks."

"Daughters," Jim says quietly. "Much the same, no matter the personality."

Rick clasps his hands between his knees, tries to imagine himself in Jim Beckett's situation, tries and fails, despite himself. He can't fathom a scene in which he waits to hear if his own little girl will live. It makes his gut churn just thinking the words. "Alexis used to read in the shower," he offers.

Jim gives Castle his attention, a careful lift of his eyebrow that is *so* Kate Beckett it's eery.

"She'd have the water running, the book on the toilet lid, hunched over to read while she took a shower. The only reason I found out was that half her books were water-damaged, even library books, and that was kind of the only sin in our house: ruining a book."

Jim sits forward in his chair as well, unconsciously mimicking Castle's position. "You ask her about the books?"

"When we had to pay to replace one of the library books, I asked her how it got wet. Did she leave it outside at school? Did she spill a glass of water? She cried, confessed everything in the lobby of the public library. How that book was just so good, she couldn't stop reading, but she was supposed to be getting ready for school, so she did both. Or tried to. She said that it didn't always work."

Jim grunts with a little laugh; Castle smiles to himself, remembering that ten year old with her hair in one long braid down her back, the brilliant freckles across her face, her two sunburned cheeks as she cried in the library.

"Alexis sometimes calls Kate," he admits. He twists his fingers together, rubs his palms together. His skin feels dry, itchy. "I know they talk about books a lot. I think my daughter misses having a mom, a normal mom. Not someone who breezes in and out. Not a grandmother with a little too much stage presence. Not a dad who gets prickly whenever she talks about boys."

"Ah, yes," Jim says knowingly, sighs himself. "I see."

"She's great," Castle sighs back. Then hastily amends his statement. "With Alexis. Great with Alexis. She listens, yeah, but she just has good ideas. It helps that she encourages Alexis to come tell me when it's something important, too." He smiles tightly. "But she's just. . .like an older sister, or an aunt? Does that make sense? She doesn't try to be Alexis's mom, but it's not just another friend."

Jim rubs at his chin again. "I think Katie just remembers what it's like. She's talked with me some, about your family, and I think she sympathizes with your daughter, wants to help when she can. She lost her mother later in life, so I at least had Johanna to figure out Katie's teen years for me, but college. . ."

"Don't tell me college is just as bad," Rick groans.

"Well. Maybe just for us."

Right. Because Kate had just lost her mother when she was in college. Rick frowns, thinks about what exactly this might to do Alexis, should Kate not-

But he can't think like that.

"Thank you," he says after a second, lifting his head to look at Jim. "I'm not sure Alexis really wants to do this, but I think she feels like she needs to."

Jim nods. "I saw the book. That's good. The nurse came into Katie's room while you were gone; she said that keeping things light and positive is really helpful, that it does things for the patients. . .she was trying to get me to talk, I think." Jim winks. "I'm not a big talker."

"Neither is Kate."

Jim loses his half-smile. "She used to be."

Oh. "She did? I can. . .see that," Rick says softly. She's given him glimpses of that Kate before: a sudden confession in quarantine about Josh, an admittance that she liked having him pull her pigtails, a dinner late at the precinct, a movie invitation. He loves that teasing, slow smile of hers, the way she'll look at him from the side of her face, grinning, mouth closed, her eyes deep and mysterious.

"I'm glad you see it," Jim says, just as softly, his eyes on the floor. "Someone ought to."

* * *

><p>Alexis's heart is racing as she pushes open the door to Kate's room. It may be partly because of the two police officers standing guard, but most of it is her father's warning that Kate doesn't look like herself, that she looks bad. Alexis clutches the book tighter and slides inside.<p>

Kate looks bad. Kate doesn't look like Detective Beckett at all.

Alexis finds herself unable to walk any closer, stunned by the figure on the bed. The thick tube from the machine looks like a big blue straw as it climbs the bed and attaches to the smaller clear tube which then disappears down Kate's throat. A band holds the tubes in place and crosses her lips like a gag. A piece of plastic forms around her nose and another little tube comes out of that, attaches somewhere Alexis can't see. All the wires, the tubes crisscrossing her pale face.

Kate's eyes are taped shut, pieces of gauze across her lids to keep the tape from chafing the sensitive skin of her eyelids. Her hair is unwashed and lays close to her skull. Her shoulders are draped with the hospital gown, but a red wire snakes out from the collar and connects to another machine that monitors something else. Her heart maybe? A urinary catheter drops from under the sheet and attaches to a bag that hangs against the right side of the bed, lurid in its color and contents.

Alexis might just panic and run out of the room. In fact, she thinks she would've already done that if it weren't for the officers standing outside who looked so grave and grateful to her when she signed in to Kate's room. Kate is one of theirs, a member of their family, and while they can't go inside the room themselves, they seemed so glad that Alexis was there to go for them.

She swallows hard and takes a step closer.

Kate's hands are swollen. The skin of her fingers is pushing past the nailbeds. The nurse back at the front desk warned her earlier than Kate might be swollen or that her skin might look strangely slack, that she might be either too hot or cold to the touch, that the machines and the tubes might look scary. At the time, Alexis had listened but not really felt it applied to her; she would be fine. It couldn't be that bad.

It is that bad. It's very bad, and it scares her in a deep place, a stab that makes her breath hurt. She should say something.

"Kate."

Alexis's voice sounds feeble, even to herself. She inches closer, slides a hand out, can't quite make it the last little bit to touch Kate. It's cold in the hospital room; her fingers are numb with it.

"It's Alexis," she whispers, bites her bottom lip.

Her father warned her. She should've listened. But she's not giving up now. Alexis turns her face away from the pitiful patient in the hospital bed and searches for a chair. She sits down there; it feels a little too close to the bed, but she's not going to allow herself to scoot back.

She opens the hardback edition of Wuthering Heights; it's the leather one with the beautiful gold leaf pages and the tree inscribed on the front cover. Kate gave it to her at the New Year's Eve party her father threw, a late Christmas gift. She spent the midnight hour reading about Heathcliff and Cathy.

She wonders if she should start at the beginning or go with her favorite scene. She decides on her favorite scene, just because it's so melancholy and dreadful and passionate, and she thinks this is the one that appeals to Kate as well, if only because Kate seems like a closet romantic.

"It's the chapter where Nelly sneaks Heathcliff in to see a dying Cathy. You remember?" Alexis starts, rubbing her fingers down the page, the beautiful book heavy on her lap. She ducks her head and begins. "'He neither spoke nor loosened his hold, for some five minutes, during which period he bestowed more kisses than ever he gave in his life before, I dare say; but then my mistress had kissed him first, and I plainly saw that he could hardly bear, for downright agony, to look into her face! The same conviction had stricken him as me, from the instant he beheld her, that there was no prospect of ultimate recovery there- -she was fated, sure to die. 'Oh, Cathy! oh my life! how can I bear it?''"

Alexis's throat closes up and she angrily wipes the tears from her cheeks. This was a stupid idea. But the emotional tug of the book and the woman lying in the bed before her is a strange balance of suffering and silence, and Alexis feels like she has to continue reading because she has no idea, otherwise, what to say.

She begins again, stumbling over the description of their last meeting, as told through the eyes of the faithful servant. The two estranged lovers' terrible selfishness, their agony of feeling; Alexis chokes on it, wondering, even as she reads, why people do this to themselves, why they make themselves suffer when the solution is so simple.

"I don't get it," she says angrily, dropping the book back to her lap. "If you love someone, why don't you just tell them? Why wait until it's too late? It doesn't make any sense!"

She used to love this book; she might never see it the same way again. She breathes heavily, warring with tears, hating herself for succumbing to the panic, the drama. She bites her lip and squares her jaw, then reaches out for Kate's fingers.

They're quite warm; the tube from the IV goes into the back of her hand, a soft, blue board taped to her arm to hold everything in place. Alexis can only stroke Kate's fingers.

She picks up the book again with her free hand and reads more. "'Why did you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart?. . .You loved me, then what right had you to leave me?"

She stops again, shudders in the cool air pouring through the vents, runs her fingers along Kate's hand, around the tubes. "This was a bad choice." She gives a little laugh to throw off the gloom of the book, the lovers destined to be without each other. "Kate. Please don't. . .don't leave us."

The noisy silence of the room, the lack of response, the machinations of the ventilator, the Kate that is a shade of the Kate they love.

"I remember that you loved this book. And I. . .I meant to read all the best parts to you. But it's too close to this, too much. Kate, I. . ."

Alexis brushes her cheeks again, sniffs back the overwhelming urge to cry harder, to let go and sob like a five year old again.

She shivers again, drops the book to the floor, takes Kate's hand in both of hers, her fingers twisting through tubes and tape to cradle the woman's hand. She leans down and kisses Kate's cheek, feels the cool touch of her papery skin.

"I don't think my Dad is going to make it if you don't make it," she whispers.

And then she has to go. She can't do this anymore.


	7. Chapter 7

And you'll be awake  
>You'll be alert<p>

-Rilo Kiley

* * *

><p>When Rick gets his turn and sits down in the chair beside Kate's bed, his foot hits something. He bends down and finds Alexis's book, surprised to see it on the floor. The back cover has a quote from the novel etched in gold, framed by leaves, and as he picks it up, he can't help reading it.<p>

_Be with me always- - -take any form- - -drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!_

God. He drops the book and stands up, shaken, hears something under his own thumping heart.

Rick rubs a hand down his face and glances back to the bed, shocked to see movement.

Kate.

"Kate!" He jerks forward, grabs her hand, winces as he knocks into the IV line, leans in close to her. "Kate?"

Her eyes roll under the tape, and Rick chews on his lip, then peels back a piece of the tape slowly. Her body arches up from the bed, and he stops, panicked, and pushes the nurse's call button.

Repeatedly.

Ana, his favorite nurse, runs through the door. She takes one look at Kate and picks up the house phone, shoving at Rick with her free hand. "Out, out!"

"But-"

"I've got to call the doctor and you can't be in here."

"I can't leave!"

"Now!" she growls.

Rick backs up, pauses at the door with his heart in this throat. On the bed, one of Kate's hands jerks, flailing, the tubes tangling, and he thinks she's searching for him. But Ana shoots him a deadly look, and he leaves.

* * *

><p>When they let him back in the room, the doctor has taken the tape off her eyes and stands over her, checking them with a light.<p>

"Mr. Castle."

"Dr. Curtis," he says. Jim wasn't in the waiting room when he went back, so it's just him to hear this news. He's afraid. He hates that he's afraid.

"She's coming out of the anesthetic faster than we expected, so I went ahead and wrote down instructions to take her off the vent by tomorrow morning. Should she regain consciousness before that time, call the nurse, and she'll call me. We'll take the tube out then. Keep her calm, tell her not to fight the machine."

He nods, his hands shaking. "So. . .so she's okay?"

"She's doing well. She's stable. If she comes around on her own, then that's very good news. Try to keep her from struggling; we don't want her to pull out the stitches, or try to pull out the tube."

"Okay." He shakes the doctor's hand as he leaves, then glances back to Kate, alone in the room with her now. "Okay."

* * *

><p>After three hours, his fear peaks and then drains away, leaving him exhausted and wrung out in the chair. He leaves Alexis's book on the floor and leans in close to Kate's bed, his elbows on the mattress, staring into space.<p>

He feels stupid talking to silence, but feels like he ought to say something else. Something encouraging. Something motivating. Something other than discussing out loud the plot of his next Nikki Heat book, his voice cracking like a fifteen year old. He's a writer, for goodness sake. But he's got nothing.

Taking her hand again, he strokes her fingers, waiting. Just waiting. He's so strung out that it takes him a moment to realize that her fingers are twitching.

He jerks upright, leans in closer to see her face. Her lashes are fluttering, eyes moving under her lids.

"Kate."

He strokes a hand along her cheek, his thumb brushing her chin. And then her body shudders, her hand flops to one side. He gathers it, presses it to the bed; he's practically draped over her. He takes her other hand, careful of the IV, tucks it against his chest.

"Kate?"

Her eyes open, blink so slowly that he wonders if he's imagined it. And then those dark eyes are on him, fuzzy and confused.

"Hey there," he breathes, grinning, squeezing her hands. "I got you. You're okay."

She blinks again, eyelashes lowering, drifting back up, and her eyes roll back. He can't help squeezing her hands again, trying to keep her awake, and her body twitches under his arm.

He presses his lips to her left hand, the one not entangled by tubes, and takes a shaky breath. "Kate."

Her eyes open again. He holds his breath, watching her, hoping. He presses the call button for the nurse. Surely this is awake enough, right?

She blinks, then tries to choke; her eyes go wide, panic settling into the back of those dark orbs. Her hand escapes his grip and smacks into the bedside railing, hard, fumbles for the tube. He captures her hand, tries to shush her. "Hey, hey, Kate. It's okay. The tube is breathing for you; let it breathe for you. Don't fight it." He pushes the nurse call button again. "It's okay, Katie. You're okay."

A keening noise comes from her chest as the machine breathes out for her, something like a wail, something unnatural, and he crouches over her, framing her face with his palms, trapping her hands under his chest. "Oh, Kate, please. Don't fight it, sweetheart. Just let it breathe for you. You're going to hurt yourself."

Ana is at his side now, checking Kate's vitals, pushing Rick away. "Ms. Beckett, you need to stay calm." She flicks her penlight in Kate's eyes, then reaches for the house phone again.

Rick goes around to the other side, determined not to be pushed away again. Kate's throat is working like she's trying swallow, her eyes darting around the room, a tear streaks to her ear. "Kate," he whispers, taking her good hand again in both of his, pressing a kiss to the back of it. "Kate, its okay. You have to let the machine do all the work."

"Dr. Curtis has been paged," Ana says, putting down the beside railing so she can check on the ventilator's tubes. "It will only be a minute."

"Hear that, Kate? Just a minute. You're okay." He places a hand at the side of her face, strokes the sweat-damp hair off her forehead. Her eyes latch on his, pleading. "It's okay. It's okay," he repeats, his voice breaking.

Dr. Curtis comes inside with her chart in hand, makes a note, and then takes a look at the monitors. He looks at Ana. "That was fast. How long has she been awake?"

"A few minutes," Castle answers. "Can you take the tube out?"

Dr. Curtis nods and washes his hands in the sink, then pulls sterile gloves from the box and tugs them on. Ana rehangs the IV and begins messing with the ventilator. Curtis comes to stand beside Kate and gives her a gentle smile. "All right, Ms. Beckett. You're looking much better today. You've got a friend with you, your dad is in the waiting room. Are we ready to take this out?"

Another painful look from Kate that makes Castle's stomach flip. He strokes the skin of her forehead with his fingers.

Curtis is disconnecting tubes as he speaks. "I'm going to have to pull this tube up out of your throat. You'll feel like you're choking for a second, but it's okay. You should start breathing on your own. Don't worry if you can't talk for awhile; your vocal cords could be a little traumatized. But they'll bounce back."

Rick moves his hand as Dr. Curtis takes hold of the tube. His heart pounds.

"All right, you should feel a sharp tug." He jerks the tube and pulls it out, Kate's body rising up with it almost, gagging. "That's it. Cough for me." Kate's chest caves in, spasms, her eyes dart to Castle, mouth open like a fish.

"Breathe Kate."

"You're just fine," Dr. Curtis says soothingly. "You're just fine. Let it go, give in to that feeling of drowning and your body will-"

Kate heaves, chokes violently, both hands darting up to her throat, but Dr. Curtis captures them, presses them back down, and nods. "That's it. That's it."

Her mouth works, her chest works, she sucks in a ragged breath and gasps, coughing weakly. She shakes her head against the pillow, her body writhing as her lungs fight for more oxygen.

Rick crouches over her, stroking her forehead, her cheek, smiling at her. "Hey there."

Kate sucks in a panicky, shallow breath, then a deeper one. Some of the wildness leaves her eyes.

Dr. Curtis takes the chart and makes another notation, then checks the machines. "She looks stable." He flips the chart back and hands it to the nurse, who starts gathering up tubes and tape.

"Is it over?" Rick asks, looking over his shoulder.

"We'll keep a close eye on her, make sure she keeps breathing on her own. She's on some heavy painkillers, which can depress her system, so we'll want to watch it. If she looks like she's in pain, or distress, please call the nurse."

"Thank you," he says, and realizes he's really close to crying. Fortunately, Ana and the doctor leave him alone.

He looks back down at Kate, those big brown eyes, the long lashes, and smiles. "Hey there, beautiful."

Her throat works, but nothing comes out. She licks her lips and winces, closes her eyes for a second (he panics a little), then opens them again. He feels the slow journey of her hand between them, and then her fingers brush weakly across his chin. He captures that hand and kisses her fingers, feels tears slip free of his eyes.

"It's okay. Don't try to talk." He smiles at her again, watches her fight sleep. "Rest, Kate. I'm here."

He spends hours with his hand on her chest, just below her collarbone, making absolutely certain she's still breathing.


	8. Chapter 8

And you'll show up for work with a smile.

And you'll laugh and embrace all your friends.

-Rilo Kiley

* * *

><p>Rick Castle leaves Jim Beckett to keep watch while he heads into the 12th on a mission. Esposito has been texting him terse updates since he and Ryan left Jenny in the waiting room with him a two days ago, but now that there is some measure of relief, some good news for a change, Castle feels better about meeting with them face to face regarding their progress on the shooting.<p>

The sergeant on desk duty has him sign in, solemn and respectful. A plainclothes detective gives him the official brotherhood nod of the head. Demming happens to be coming down the stairs towards the front desk, and he startles at the sight of Rick, then grabs the man's shoulder in a death grip, pulls him in tight.

"She's a fighter," Demming chokes out, and then releases Rick and moves on.

The uniformed officer in the elevator with him pushes the button for homicide's floor without asking, and when the elevator stops, he holds the door open and gestures for Castle to get off first. In the hall outside the elevator, Rick stands frozen.

He can't go further. He's in jeans, a tshirt, his hair is spiked by his own agitated fingers running through it. He feels hollow, like his body is here at the station while his guts are somewhere else. In a hospital room waiting for her to take breath number 5,639. He's still keeping tally in his head.

He stares down the hall towards her desk, empty, a respectful distance around it, and he can't make himself go any further. He can't see her desk without her in it, close to it, about to sit down at it. He can't go past that chair, see the Russian dolls lined up behind her monitor, the nameplate he angled wrong to drive her crazy, the parade of tiny elephants with the random notes stuck through their trunks. He can't see those things waiting for her, can't see his chair sitting beside her desk, can't-

Something in him is panicking; he can't be here without her.

"Castle," Ryan says, grabbing him by the hand and pumping his arm up and down. "Come on into the conference room. We got everything in there."

He's so thankful there's no murder board for this case that he almost weeps. Rick follows Ryan into the conference room, the place taken over by reports, files, evidence, everything related to Kate's case, to her mother's case, to the whole dirty thing. Esposito is inside, rifling through some printouts. He looks up, his face a hard shell.

"Castle. Beckett?"

He nods back, shoves his hands into his jeans. "Good. They've taken her off the vent. She's managed to breathe on her own for the last eight hours. Her dad's sitting with her now."

The relief on Esposito's face is so violent that Castle feels its echo in his own hollow chest. He can't look at the man; he turns instead to the chair and sits down. "Tell me her stupid, foolish plan worked."

"We got the shooter," Ryan says.

Esposito snarls. "We took him down. He's in the hospital, under police guard. We've interviewed him a few times, but he's not saying who hired him."

"Another hired gun," Castle says quietly.

"Yeah."

"I *told* her it wasn't worth it." Castle smashes his hand against the table, wants to shove back and do some serious damage, but he clenches his fists instead and battles it back. "I told her it would get us nothing."

"Not quite." Ryan pulls a folder out of the stack and slides it over to him. "We also found the guy's getaway car when we canvassed the area."

"Yeah?"

Esposito sits down across from him. "Asshole had some fake identification papers in the car, but they connected him to another unsolved case in New Jersey."

"So what does that tell us?"

Ryan sighs. "We're running it down. Not sure right now. But the guns in his trunk. . .black market, all of them. We've got some calls in to the Feds on those."

"The Feds? Why?" Castle studies the pages before him, but he honestly can't think straight right now. Solving mysteries, even this one, holds little appeal.

"We're. . .uh. . ." Ryan shifts in his chair and leans in closer. "We're not sure who we can trust, Castle. We've got an acting Captain sent over from the 9th; we've got people concerned and sympathetic towards Beckett, but we've also hit some serious obstacles."

"What do you mean?" His head comes up sharply to stare down Ryan, then he switches to Esposito. "What is he talking about?"

"We put in a request for the Jersey file, got the runaround," Esposito says, his jaw working. He snorts with derision. "I went over myself yesterday, spent all freaking day, and looked it up myself. It was misfiled."

"Shit," Castle whispers. He rubs his hands into his eye sockets, takes another look at the papers in front of him. "You think this hired killer isn't a new employee, don't you? That he's been on retainer for awhile."

Esposito is nodding. Ryan scratches his head. "See, well. He's got his tracks covered. We're going through the Jersey file, and we notice some things. Some odd things. You know how the files we searched through were carefully altered to use a different police officer's name? We found that again here."

"Another cover up on this murder in New Jersey, a cover up orchestrated by the same guy who covered up Kate's mother's murder. Is that what you're telling me?"

"Yes. We think so," Esposito pushes another file across the table. "And then there's that."

"What's this?"

"It was delivered to your home yesterday."

"You went through my mail?"

"Alexis called me," Ryan says quietly. "I told her we'd take it; I asked her to wait on telling you until we knew how it fit in."

"What is this?" It's a thick file, old, rubber-banded. The envelope it came in rests below it; Castle pulls it free and studies the handwriting, the return address. "This is from Captain Montgomery. What *is* this?"

Ryan hesitates, turns to Esposito with worry etched deep into his forehead.

"Ryan. Tell me what this is." He covers the file with his hand, certain he doesn't want to know, but equally sure that he must.

"It's. . .it was all the proof the Captain could find on our guy, not enough for a jury, but enough to. . .enough to know the truth."

"Are you telling me that Captain Montgomery knew who he was?" Castle hisses.

"He figured it out. He collected evidence." Esposito is battling emotion; it wars on his face. "He didn't have enough for a DA, but it's damning enough."

Castle glances down at the file under his fingers. "He knew who it was that ordered the hit on Kate's mom. He knew. He said he was blackmailed by this guy, but he never once. . .all he did was keep Kate safe. He shielded her from him. And now what do we do?"

Esposito grinds his teeth and glares across the table. "He addressed it to you, Castle. Not me. Not Ryan. And especially not Kate."

"Shit." Shit, shit, shit. Castle closes his eyes and tilts his head back.

"Are you going to let her see it? Are you going to tell her?" Ryan says softly.

Castle opens his eyes, that hollow feeling descending over him once again. Montgomery had entrusted this responsibility to him, had passed on the torch. It was his job now to protect his partner, even from herself. Montgomery had known what Kate would do when she got the man's name; he'd said that Kate would run straight for him, try to take him down. The Captain had pleaded with Castle to call her off, to talk her down from it. He hadn't been able to talk her out of this stupid plot though either, had he? She set herself up as bait and lured a hired killer to the Captain's funeral.

If he told her this information, he was suddenly quite certain that Kate would wind up dead. Dead or disappeared.

And yet. . .how could he keep it from her?

"I don't know." He shudders, buries his face in his hands. "Oh, God. I don't know."


	9. Chapter 9

And you'll be a real good listener.  
>You'll be honest; You'll be brave.<br>You'll be handsome, and you'll be beautiful:  
>You'll be happy.<p>

-Rilo Kiley

* * *

><p>She is dark. She is heavy.<p>

_Heavy._

Her lids crack; the light is extreme. A face against the light.

_Daddy._

She is heavy. Her chest-

She is dark.

* * *

><p>Her throat burns.<p>

No voice here, burns. No voice against the dark.

Threads. Throat burns, threading pain into needles.

Burns. Stitching her up with pain.

She has to use all her energy to fill her lungs. He is sitting on her lungs. Why is he doing that? Why won't he lift up a little and let her breathe?

"Castle," she rasps, surprises herself with the sound of her own voice: brutal, rough, like she has been swallowing spikes.

"Kate. Katie? Hey there, beautiful. Open your eyes."

Her eyes are open. They are. It burns. _Stop sitting on me, let me breathe. Let me-_

His face floating like a balloon. Then connects, connected, hands on her face. Why is he touching her?

She swallows; everything burns. "Throat."

"What? Oh, want some water? The nurse says I can give you sips. Small sips. But you might throw up. The anesthetic is still messing with your system, so take it easy."

Her eyes are open. She grunts. Castle hustles; her chest still feels like it is collapsing every time she breathes out. It is a struggle to refill her lungs. She could just stay like this, air expelled. It is easier, less work. She will just rest here a moment, breath gone, wait just a moment before trying to breathe in again. Just wait. She can just settle into the slow leak of air out of her. . .

"Kate!"

She jerks, diaphragm spasms; she gasps. Kate cries out with the pain and blinks against tears. Swallows hard and feels it like a knife down her throat, into her chest, filleting her. Someone has cracked open her sternum and put his hand in her chest and hung her organs from her ribs, pierced them all with the jagged edges. The split down her chest is ragged, gaping.

"You have to keep breathing, Kate. Please don't stop breathing. They'll put you back on the vent, and that's. . .you might not come off again."

"Water," she groans, closes her eyes against the waves of pain.

"Right here, Kate. Right here."

The straw is between her lips and the instant the water coats her throat _oh God thank you_. And then the lukewarm wave hits her stomach like a sledgehammer and she jerks up in bed, eyes wide, and vomits clear and acidic all over her left side. Tears leak down her cheeks as the agony sets up a cutting beat in time with her clamoring heart. Wretched, ragged pieces of her chest exposed to the live wire of pain.

"It's okay," he murmurs, hovering, touching her forehead, fingers behind her neck to ease her back down. "It's okay. I got you. You're okay."

She's not okay. She's anything but okay. "Hurts. God, hurts."

"I know, Kate. I know. I've called the nurse; they'll add more painkillers to your drip. Change your sheets. Let me just clean this up."

When she opens her eyes, he's cradling her face, cleaning her neck and shoulder and arm with the edge of the sheet, then damp paper towels. "No." She moans again; every word an agony.

"It's okay."

"Castle, don't." Oh God. God, please.

"Alexis got the stomach flu twice in one month when she was three. In case you didn't know, three year olds don't run for the toilet, they run for daddy."

She moans but it's meant to be a laugh, closes her eyes, tries to not smell it. She puts her right hand to her mouth, tries not to gag again.

"Want some water to swish around in your mouth?"

She nods, opens her eyes, chews on her bottom lip to keep from crying again. Tries not to feel it, the split down her chest. She takes another sip, carefully moves the water around her mouth, then spits into the bedpan Castle is holding up. The crack doen her chest is widening.

"Nurse is on her way. Still in pain, Kate?"

She grunts a yes, and puts a hand to her chest, afraid to touch it, the pain is too much. Waves, in and out, making it hard to hear anything else.

A hand strokes the side of her face; her eyelashes flutter weakly, open. She can't, can't think right. She should, there is something she should say. Something to him.

"Please," she whispers. Has to close her eyes.

"I know, Kate. The nurse is on her way."

Kate whimpers, hates herself for it, can't be bothered to stop the next whimper as it echoes in her throat, builds to a keening urgency.

"I know, baby, I know. Hang in there. The nurse is right here. Here you go, Kate. It'll be better in a second."

Tears are running down the sides of her face. His fingers brushing the tears. She rides the next weave, wipes out, drowns. Down. Drowns down, ever down, listening to the voice whispering reassurances in her ear.

* * *

><p>She cries out, wakes to her own cry, and pain. <em>Pain<em>.

He tries to hold her; the motion of him makes her cry.

_Daddy._

He strokes her face, kisses her forehead. Sings her the song her mother always sang, low and rocky, his calloused hands down her temples, across her cheeks, tracing her nose, just like her mom always did when she was sick. "There's my brave girl. My beautiful, brave little girl."

She cries, cries quietly to keep it from hurting so much, keeps her eyes closed until she feels that first curtain fall over her legs, drag its way up her body until it covers her head, darkness, relief.

Heavy.

_Daddy_.

* * *

><p>"On a scale of 1 to 10, how bad is your pain?" Why do they talk so much? Every time. Every time. Just, ah, ah, fuck.<p>

"12," she grits out, her teeth gnashing, her mouth contorted in a rictus of pain. Involuntarily, she jerks, multiplies the pain past her own limits; the black wave descends.

"Okay, Kate, it's in the drip. It will all. . ."

All be fine. All be fine in a minute. . .

* * *

><p>"Ana, please. Please don't," she begs, tries to lift her hand, can't.<p>

"I've got to, Kate. You're in agony. Rick came and got me, he's so worried about you. How's the pain scale?"

Castle is here? "Please don't. I can't keep track; it makes me sick. Can't stay awake."

"That's because we're weaning you off the morphine. How's the pain, Kate?"

Oh shit, shit, no. She's on morphine? Her father's history; she can't do that. It's in her genes; what if she's addicted? "Don't know. There's no pain."

"Yes you do, Kate. You need to tell me honestly so we can make sure you're healing."

She grunts, feels the lie tell on her. Feels the hovering presence bearing down on her. "A 9. It's a 9. Fuck." It hurts.

"Good girl." Ana writes it down in her chart and starts the IV.

She blinks away tears, refuses to cry, sets her jaw against both the agony and the ecstasy.

It's not as potent this time, thank God, thank God. The wave is grey; it pulls at her like a strong tide; she is not yet drowning. The jagged edge is gone, but not the chasm; the chasm of pain still yawns within her.

"Castle." Judas. Told on her to the nurse.

"I'm right here, Kate."

It's enough. His hand on her cheek. Enough to pull her back, not yet under, just a tug, a tugging at her body. She doesn't have to look at the pain in the eye.

"Where's my dad?"

"He's back at the loft. Want me to call and get him over here?"

"No. No. Just. . .where's Alexis?"

"Same."

"It doesn't hurt," she lies. She swallows; her mouth is like a sock. Her eyes are heavy. Her chest numb. It's good stuff. Good. "My hand."

"I've already got your hand, Kate. I've got you."

"Hm." Her eyelids droop, down. Up, back up. What was she saying? "What happened? Why does it hurt, hurt all the time?"

"You got shot, Kate. You were shot. But we got the guy."

Oh. That's right. She knew that.

"Don't leave."

"Never."

She sighs, lets the drag of the drug-tide pull her out, down.

* * *

><p>She opens her eyes. Licks her lips. Cracked, sharp sting. She blinks against pale morning light.<p>

Something heavy. She turns her head slowly. Castle is asleep on top of her supinated right hand, her palm open at his ear, his drool at her wrist. She swallows, painfully, dry mouth and tongue too thick. Slowly lets her fingers curl into his hair, warm and soft.

She twitches her fingers on accident; he stirs. Wakes. Blinks and lifts his head.

"Hey," she says, glad to hear her voice isn't too broken. She smiles.

"Hey," he whispers, clears his throat to get the sleep out of it. Smiles back, that wide and beaming and brilliant grin that leaves her a little breathless.

"You been sleeping here?"

He tilts his head, studying her. "Yes."

"Why?"

His eyebrows raise. She blinks and feels the rattle in her chest as she breathes again. She needs to cough, but something tells her that's not a good idea.

"Water?"

A look crosses his face; she waits, runs her tongue around her gums, the inside of her cheek, swallows again. She feels dumb and weighted down.

"How much do you remember?" he says, putting a straw to her lips.

She sips, lets it slide down her throat, cool and beautiful. She shakes her head. "A lot of. . .nothing. It hurts."

"It hurts?"

She frowns. Examines herself in her mind, feeling for her body. "No? No."

"You've been in the hospital for a little over a week."

"Why? Oh. I got shot. I was shot." Awareness trickles in, brings panic. "Oh God, at the funeral. Castle-" She makes a move, as if to get up, and both his hands come down on her arms, pinning her.

"You've got uniforms outside your door, a plainclothes detective downstairs, and a couple black and whites making rounds outside."

"He's still out there?" She tries to clear the fog from her brain, realizes she's trembling. No energy, her muscles are like jelly.

"We got the shooter."

"But."

"But not the guy who hired him."

Lockwood, all over again, then. This time, no great escape. She'll make sure of it. She knits her eyebrows and thinks.

"Stop. You need to rest, Kate. You've been in a lot pain. You were on a ventilator after surgery. You've got to let yourself heal."

"I will," she says, ignoring him.

"Katherine Beckett, you are going to rest. Ryan and Esposito have it covered."

She gives him a look.

"Don't even," he growls, standing up to loom over her. "Do not even try that with me. You almost died. You almost died, Kate. So let it go and get some rest."

"I feel okay. I'm not tired."

"The hell you're not." He takes her hand in his, smooths her fingers out along his palm. "You see this?"

She looks down at his hand; he's fit her fingers up against four crescent shaped marks in his skin. "Yeah?"

"This is where you cut my hand with your nails, you were in so much pain. Squeezing my hand so hard. You may not remember it, but I sure as hell do."

Oh. She looks down at his hand. God.

"Sorry." She reaches back for the event, a memory, something, but it's not there. Nothing is there.

"Don't be sorry, Kate. I'd do it again. A hundred times. But I'm tired. I'm so freaking tired of this. Every time I say what I mean to say, you forget. The pain, the drugs, whatever. It pulls it all right out of your head."

"What?" It's still a haze. There's something about her father, about how it was when she was sick as a kid. Sick three year olds run to their father. Did her dad tell her that? "What's out of my head?"

Castle leans over and presses his lips to her forehead. "Everything you mean to me, Kate. All of it."

"What?" That doesn't make any sense.

"I love you, Kate. And I'm going to do whatever it takes, *whatever it takes* to get you better, to keep you safe.. Do you hear me? God, I love you. I love you, Kate."


End file.
